Good morning good morning. Hello. How are you? I am okay. Alive, not being bombed. Can’t ask for much more, can we? Don’t love being from such a belligerent country. Not super great, no siree.

Three observations from me about this stupid-ass war we’re in:

1. The guilt. So much guilt! Guilt at being an American and being part of this country that pulls such insane, horrific shit. Guilt at living a comfortable and happy life in a world where my country fucking bombs girl schools and kills hundreds of kids. There were times this weekend I was absolutely paralyzed with guilt. There were times this weekend I didn’t think about it at all and had a great time in my life. There were times where I felt guilty about that. Of course this guilt is useless and sucks but I find I do not enjoy being the kind of person who ignores their guilt.

2. As I was laying in bed last night, as another wave of Iranian counterstrikes was hitting the Middle East, and the war was widening, with Lebanon becoming part of the theater, drones hitting Cyprus, ships burning in the gulf, drones hitting Israeli desalinization plants and American naval bases and Saudi oil refineries and apartment buildings in Dubai, I was thinking what most of us were probably thinking about these: that they won’t do much damage, little things here and there. But then it hit me: what if they do? What if, somehow, not impossible, Iran scores a major hit on some critical piece of Israeli infrastructure and does massive damage — a nuclear plant maybe. And it was fleeting, it was unlikely, but it did strike me: We could be in a nuclear war by the time I wake up. Israel could get so pissed at some major hit, and Netanyahu is such a lunatic he just might do it. And what would Russia do, already so damaged internationally with its reputation of “come into our orbit and we will protect you from America?” I mean look. It was unlikely, but it struck me as the most likely it had been since I was a kid. Did not like!

3. It is shockingly hard to tell what is going on in this war, a new kind of fog of war. Mostly AI and propaganda but also the hollowing out of American media and foreign correspondents. Massive disinformation campaigns on both sides, the expectation that things proceed at the pace of your internet feed. Videos of fires, drones hitting buildings, all maybe fake. It’s fucking insane. I try to remember that no one knew what was going on in any war at all, in any timely manner really, prior to the 1940’s, and citizens didn’t know aything until maybe Vietnam. But it is weird to think that we are past the high water mark. We’re going to know less and less again about wars and things happening far away.

This is all so horrific and dumb. And I fucking hate that Trump successfully killed the Ayatollah, I hate he got so lucky, I hate that these fuckers think they’re on a roll. I hate that Iran was already facing a massive drought and food shortage and millions of people may die and now it is going to be our fault and we are obviously not going to even attempt to help them in any way.

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We are listening to Space Needle this morning, The Moral Eels Eat the Space Needle. It was in my “To Investigate” queue from when I bought the album a month or so ago, so I could add some tracks to my playlists. Typically when I listen to albums in my “To Investigate” queue for a second time, I skip old favorites that happen to be in there. But today I am giving Space Needle one more spin before I place them back in the nostalgia vault. They are great.

Update from last week: Danny Meyer never owned the Model Coffee Shop, many people were quick to point out to me. He owned Union Square Cafe, which I knew, but i kinda thought he owned both. No one told me who actually did own the model coffee shop. And for clarity’s sake, yeah. I mean Coffee Shop, right there on Union and 15th ish, west side of the park. The one that was always fully employed by models. Hence, Model Coffee Shop.

Probably Epstein.

ANYWAY. Excellent weekend. Friday I worked, but also voted, which was a good time. I went to the new Chase branch to start this whole convoluted process of obtaining my safe deposit contents from an old safe deposit box at the closed TriBeCa location of Chase we used at work. It took an hour but they figured it out. The whole hour I had to talk to their greeter guy, who was a retired New York City cop. Friendly enough, but… yeah I did not enjoy that. Stressed me out. Happy to have a life that does not include a bunch if NYC cops anymore.

Saturday I was in an absolutely foul mood because of the war and my daughter (more on that below) so Emma wisely let me off the hook for Girl Scout cookie sales, which sucked because I had been looking forward to it but I was in no state. So I went to Chore House and did gardening shit, planting all my seedlings, cleaning out the greenhouse for spring. I did laundry of all my dirty rags and work clothes, and I re-organized the storage closet, which is crammed full of all the shit that will ultimately go up in the studio when it’s done. It was a very soothing day, me trying to calm myself from freaking out about another war and how Americans are just so absolutely confident none of this shit will ever touch them. But man that greenhouse smells great. My banana plant did not survive the winter, though, that is sad. But my oranges and lemons and limes all did. Kind of a mystery.

I am trying a few new things in the garden this year. Different plants in different beds, some new crops, some new approaches to seedlings. I am not at 10,000 hours of gardening yet, I am not an expert, but I’m making good progress. By the time I’m retired, I should be great. I do need to figure out who can water these seedlings for me when I’m in Boston, though. Last year I forgot about them and let them all die, that sucked.

Sunday Jane and I went to the playground in the morning because it was warm, and the old spring/fall/summer playground gang got back together for the first time in a while, that was nice. Catching up with parents on what they’d been up to over the winter, looking at how much the kids have grown. Not sure how many more months/years Jane and her friends will like the playground, but it seems like we have another year. Are there no playgrounds at Middle Schools cuz kids don’t like them anymore by then or do kids not like playgrounds anymore by Middle School because they don’t have playgrounds?

Then Emma took over and I went and worked in the attic, my happy place, alone, listening to music, doing endless physical labor no one else in the world sees or understands or cares about, at a snail’s pace. I got the second layer of sheetrock done on the west side, and start on the OSB layer one. I only got one day, maybe five hours, of work up there this weekend, which is not enough, but it was a productive day.

I finished A Dance with Dragons, hence, the entire Game of Thrones series this weekend. Started in, mmm, looks like late August of last year. Six months. Was it worth it? Yeah, I suppose so. I found it interesting. Boy there is a ton of shit in that last book that is not in the TV show, and there are some legitimately good things in the last few seasons of the show that are not in the books (Hardhome, Battle of the Bastards, Loot Train battle, Shireen, Arya’s revenge). It’s not as cut and dried as I thought. I sure would like another book. I will choose to remain optimistic, but, god, imagine trying to hold all that shit in your head. Just so many freakin people. Can’t imagine retaining it all. Sometimes people ask me about the Trek book and I’m like “I don’t know man, I wrote that like 10 years ago what do you want,” and it’s short! And it must suck to be, like, “okay I have six months free let’s work on Winds of Winter” and realize you can’t remember shit and have to spend half that time loading it back into your brain. I feel kinda bad for George. I mean, live is fun, living is fun, having a bunch of money and doing fun things is fun, and he is old and living is probably more fun to him than writing. This is obviously not the case with a lot of writers, but it seems to be with him. And that is fine.

Jane basically ruined our new approach to teeth on the first day. We were going to Bojangles the morning we declared another war (great post rock song title, that), and I just asked her: you gonna brush your teeth or take the hit on your streak? And she couldn’t decide. I kept telling her I didn’t care, didn’t have an opinion, but she wouldn’t make a decision. Lasted like 30 minutes. And I’m sitting here thinking “girl, a girl’s school just got bombed and 100 girls your age just got killed,” which of course made me want to cry but also cmon girl, keep things in perspective and, yeah, whole thing just sucked.

And there’s still no Diet Mt Dew at Bojangles anymore.

BURN.

I’d do a morning drive mix today but it was all over the map, no consistency whatsoever. I did get to watch Jane listen to Boris/Merzbow though, that was pretty funny. She didn’t even notice it.

Looks like this Justa Mix is close enough, though, to being done that I can just add a couple songs that came along this weekend. Did a deep dive into Neil Sedaka, RIP. Jane hated it, it was rough. I did learn that 10cc used to be his backing band, though, so, hey. One degree of separation between 10cc and Joy Division I like that. Sodajerk by Buffalo Tom came on at some point and it reminded me I should sign up for his Substack, but it’s a Substack, ugh.

“Don’t Ever Change” Came on while I was working in the Attic and, god, that song gets me every time. Might be the Chain’s most beautiful song.

The two Raffaellas on here are different. I think I finally have that whole thing sorted. And I am sorry for the U2 song. It’s the least offensive from the new EP. Not actually terrible! But close.

Oh and I forgot to include the link on Friday to that playlist. Sorry about that.

OK gotta go take Emma’s car to the shop and repair the damage I did at Christmas when I waged battle and lost with a Somerville parking pole.